Western Union: Money Transfer

Credits:

Advertising Agency: PUBLICIS WORLDWIDE HONG KONG, HONG KONG

David Szabo Publicis Hong Kong Creative Director
Leung Chung Publicis Hong Kong Art Director

Date of 1st Implementation: 12 December 2007

Describe the objective of the promotion.
Domestic helpers in Hong Kong often use banks to remit money back home to their families. Banks have bank hours. Their processes are slow and inflexible. Usually these people support whole families on their modest income. So not only is this money vital but it's also vitally important that it can be received as soon as possible. We needed a quick, cheap, easy to get message that communicated Western Union's money transfer service was fast, (in fact in most cases the money can be received within 15 minutes).

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation.
After the concept for the supermarket conveyer belt idea bought by Western Union, we identified the most appropriate supermarkets where our target customers shopped at and where we had agent locations nearby. Our client bought the idea straight away. However it took some serious lobbying before we could finally get one of the supermarket chains to work with us and make it a reality.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service.
In Hong Kong domestic helpers only have one day off a week. Most of their time is spent in their employer's home or going out to buy food for the household.We only have two supermarket chains here and using the supermarket environment of one of these was the perfect place to connect with our target market. Additionally, the educational level of a lot of our customers is not so high. Having this very visible demonstration of our fast money transfer happening right in front of their eyes while standing in line waiting to pay was just what was needed.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results.
The effectiveness of this small campaign was very high. We reached nearly all of our existing customers as well as getting our message across loud and most importantly, clearly to those people still using banks to remit their money. We carried out research findings afterwards to gauge the effectiveness of the communication and the recall and general liking of this simple ad was nearly 90%.